3'.I2 MYTHS OF THK CHPIROKEE [etm.ansM'J 



the liclp of tliosc wiirriois who h;ul ht'iii sent with thcui. These then 

 rotiinicd to the tribe, while the others kept on to the west. All com- 

 niunieatioii was now at an end. No more was lieard of the wanrlerers, 

 and in time the story of the lost Cherokee was forgotten or remem- 

 bered only as an old tale. 



Still the white man ]iressed upon the Cherokee and one piece of 

 land after another was sold, until as years went on the dispossessed 

 people liegan to turn their faces toward the west as their final resting 

 place, and small bands of hunters crossed the Mississippi to learn 

 what might be beyond. One of these parties pushed on across the 

 plains and there at the foot of the great mountains — the Rockies — 

 they found a tribe speaking the old Cherokee language and living still 

 as the Cherokee had lived before they had ever known the white man 

 or his ways. 



io8. THE MASSACRE OF THE ANI'-KUTA'NI 



Among other perishing traditions is that relating to the Ani'-Kuta'ni 

 or Ani'-Kwata'ni. concerning whom the modern Cherokee know so 

 little that their very identity is now a matter of dispute, a few hold- 

 ing that they were an ancient people who preceded the Cherokee and 

 built the mounds, while others, with more authority, claim that they 

 were a clan or society in the tribe and were destroyed long ago ])y 

 pestilence or other calamity. Fortunately, we are not left to depend 

 entirely upon surmise in the matter, as the tradition was noted by 

 Haywood some seventy years ago. and by another writei' some forty 

 years later, while the cotmected storey could still be obtained from 

 competent authorities. From the various statements it would .seem 

 that the Ani'-Kuta'ni were a priestly clan, having hereditary super- 

 vision of all religious ceremonies among the Cherokee, until, in con- 

 sequence of having abused their sacred privileges, they were attacked 

 and completely exterminated by the rest of the tril>(\ leaving the 

 priestly functions to be assumed thereafter by indi\idual doctors and 

 conjurers. 



Haywood says, without giving name or details. '■'The (^herokees are 

 addicted to conjuration to ascertain whether a sick person will recover. 

 This custom arose after the destruction of their priests. Tradition 

 states that such persons lixed auiong their ancestors and were deemed 

 superior to others, and were extirpated long ago, in consecjuence of 

 the misconduct of one of the priests, who attempted to take the wife 

 of a man who was the brother of the leading chief of the nation."' 



A more detailed statement, on the authoritj' of Chief Joliu Ross and 

 Dr J. B. Evans, is given in 1866 by a writer who speaks of the mas- 

 sacre as having occurred about a century before, although from the 



i^ut. and ,\burig. Hist. Tenn., p. 266. 



